UN Environment Programme

April 14, 2022
Healthy, biodiverse ecosystems sustain life on Earth by providing air, water and other essential elements. From forests to farmlands to oceans, the planet’s ecosystems are the basis of resources, services and industries.

Despite the value nature provides, it is being degraded at catastrophic rates. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 75 percent of the Earth’s land and 66 percent of its oceans have been altered by human activity and many essential ecosystem services are eroding. The rate of global change in nature over the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history.

Nature loss has far-reaching consequences. Damaged ecosystems exacerbate climate change by releasing carbon instead of storing it. Rampant development is putting animals and humans in closer contact increasing the risk of diseases like COVID-19 to spread. A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report found that about 60 percent of human infections are estimated to have an animal origin.

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Mail & Guardian

April 4, 2022
Can humanity curb spending that harms the world’s biodiversity and instead focus funding on protecting it? That question is at the heart of negotiations in Geneva, which will set the stage for a crucial United Nations COP15 biodiversity summit in China later this year. 

Almost 200 countries are to adopt a global framework to safeguard nature by mid-century from the destruction wrought by humanity, with a key milestone of 30% protected by 2030.

These ambitions will only be met with a new approach to biodiversity funding and a rethink of the huge sums spent on subsidies harmful to nature such as fossil fuels, agriculture and fishing, according to observers. This can often result in environmental destruction and encourage unsustainable levels of production and consumption.

The exact figure that the world spends on these harmful subsidies is debated, although the group Business for Nature estimates that it could be as much as $1.8-trillion every year, or 2% of global GDP. 

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China Dialogue

April 4, 2022
Negotiators and observers left the latest meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with renewed momentum but with many issues still unresolved, including how to find the missing US$700 billion needed annually to protect and restore nature.

The two-and-a-half week session in Geneva saw the first purely face-to-face negotiations since before the Covid-19 pandemic began. With just a few months before COP15 – the major CBD meeting, to be held in China – it was also billed as the last chance to make significant changes to the draft text that came out of the last CBD meeting in October, which had been widely criticised.

The Geneva talks saw many additions to the text, but most are in square brackets, meaning they have yet to be agreed upon. An extra meeting has now been scheduled for June in Nairobi to try and find consensus.

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IUCN

March 29, 2022
As the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) talks close in Geneva, Director of IUCN’s International Policy Centre Sonia Peña Moreno reflects on two weeks of negotiations, some missed opportunities, and her hopes for future meetings. Going forward, Parties to the CBD must reconnect with reality and continue to craft a simple, action-oriented post-2020 global biodiversity framework that clearly spells out what must be done to safeguard nature and the services it provides to humanity.

The first in-person meetings of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in over two years opened on Monday 14 March in Geneva, Switzerland. If the opening statements were an indication, the meetings began with high expectations. Parties to the Convention stated their hope to advance a global plan to protect and restore biodiversity for the next decade and beyond (a post-2020 global biodiversity framework).

However, as the days went by, progress became elusive and was replaced by a lack of agreement. The draft text, even on seemingly uncontroversial issues, became full of brackets – denoting text that has yet to be agreed. The overwhelming number of sessions and side-meetings translated into fatigue, and the positive tone became one of frustration.

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The Seattle Times

March 29, 2022
Environmentalists are criticizing slow progress at a U.N.-backed meeting of nearly all the world’s countries toward beefing up protections for biodiversity on Earth, ahead of a crucial meeting expected later this year in China where delegates could sign a global agreement.

A total of 195 countries — but not the United States — which are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity wrapped up a two-week meeting Tuesday that aimed to make progress toward a deal to prevent the loss of biodiversity and avoid the extinction of many vulnerable species. It also addresses the emergence of pathogens like the coronavirus, which damage both lives and livelihoods.

Delegates agreed to hold an interim meeting in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, in June before a high-level conference known as COP15 in Kunming, China, at a still-undecided date later this year.

“Biodiversity is securing our own survival on this planet. It is not a joking matter,” said Francis Ogwal of Uganda, a meeting co-chair. “Every day that you live as a human being is on biodiversity.”

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BBC

March 29, 2022
A global agreement to reverse the loss of nature and halt extinctions is inching closer, as talks in Geneva enter their final day.

International negotiators are working on the text of a UN framework to safeguard nature ahead of a high-level summit in China later this year.

Observers have slammed the "snail's pace" of negotiations and are pressing for a strengthening of ambitions.

Divisions remain, including over financing the plans.

"The science is very clear, we do not have any more time to waste; we need to take action now," Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of international advocacy at WWF-UK, told BBC News.

"Not only on biodiversity loss, but also on climate change which is a very inter-linked issue. So that is what's at stake here; it's actually the future of the planet and its people."

The final version of the draft UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be negotiated in Kunming, China, at the Cop15 summit, which is expected to take place at the end of August.

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DW

March 29, 2022
Two weeks of talks that were meant to prepare for a global accord on reversing the destruction of biodiversity have led to just minor steps forward, as the sessions closed on Tuesday.

Although there was some success at the Geneva talks, observers are now calling for the same political leadership that was seen in the run-up to the Paris accord on climate change to breathe urgency into the negotiations.

"This could be a really historic moment in many ways that we've been waiting for for a long time," Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, told DW from Geneva.

"In the last two weeks, I think we made a significant step forward on a number of very important elements of the biodiversity framework," Lambertini said. "But much progress needs to be done."

"As we move forward, political leadership is going to be critical to resolve some of the stickiest points and to drive consensus. And so we are calling upon heads of states, prime ministers and ministers of environment to drive that leadership," Lambertini said — calls that were echoed by Greenpeace.

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British Ecological Society

March 28, 2022
The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an international treaty that was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and entered into force in December 1993. Its purpose is to protect species and ecosystems, recognising this as a ‘common concern of humankind’. The Convention has three main objectives:

1. The conservation of biological diversity
2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
3. The fair sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources

The CBD has two main supplementary agreements that help to implement these objectives:
• The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2003) governs the movements of modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology between
countries
• The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (2014) provides a transparent legal framework for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources

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SciDevNet

March 18, 2022
Once swathed in green, only three per cent of the Philippines remains covered with pristine forests.  Losing these ecosystems — not to mention the impacts of overfishing, climate change and extreme weather events — has taken a tragic toll on the country’s rich biodiversity and its people.

While the Philippines remains well-stocked with unique fauna and flora and is recognised as one of the world’s 17 mega biodiverse countries, the latest science and fieldwork make it clear that this precious biodiversity is under threat.  Especially at risk are the indigenous people and local communities, who battle to protect it.

We are hopeful that a new global target to protect 30 per cent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 (30×30 goal) is included in a new global strategy to safeguard biodiversity that is expected to be approved in Kunming, China, later this year.

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BBC

March 16, 2022
Made up of 115 islands dotting the Indian Ocean off East Africa, Seychelles is known as a global hotspot for biodiversity. With as much as 85% of its animals and 45% of its plant species considered endemic, the archipelago is sometimes called the "Galapagos of the Indian Ocean". And both on land and in the ocean, different groups are working to preserve this ecological paradise.

This year, after creating a sophisticated zoning plan and completing extensive conversations with representatives from the country's tourism, fishing, petroleum and conservation efforts, the island nation is prepared to fully implement the landmark Marine Spatial Planning Initiative it announced several years ago: to protect 30% of its ocean territory. Tourism, climate change and other factors have already greatly impacted the environment of the Seychelles' more populated "Inner Islands", so this agreement – part of a deal to write off its national debt in exchange for conservation measures – is now aimed at protecting its 72 low-lying coralline "Outer Islands" from development before it's too late.

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Associated Press

March 14, 2022
Nearly all the world’s countries kicked off a U.N.-backed meeting Monday aimed at preventing the loss of biodiversity — seen as critical to avoiding the extinction of many vulnerable species, the emergence of pathogens like the coronavirus, and the damage to both lives and livelihoods of people around the world, Indigenous peoples in particular.

The two-week meeting of over 190 countries on the Convention on Biological Diversity, after a two-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be the last gathering of its kind before a major conference in the coming months in Kunming, China, that will try to adopt an international agreement on protecting biodiversity.

“We have this one goal, which is to bend the curve on biodiversity loss and really to build that shared future to live in harmony with nature in the long term,” the convention’s executive secretary, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, told reporters Monday.

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France24

March 14, 2022
UN biodiversity negotiations began in Geneva on Monday to hammer out a global deal to better protect nature that is due for approval later this year.

Almost 200 countries are due to adopt a global framework this year to safeguard nature by mid-century from the destruction wrought by humanity, with a key milestone of 30 percent protected by 2030.

"The world is clearly eager for urgent action to protect nature," said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in a press release.

"And we have no time to spare. Together we must ultimately deliver a truly historic agreement that puts us firmly on the path to living in harmony with nature."

Talks, which run from March 14 to 29, will set the stage for a crucial United Nations COP 15 biodiversity summit, initially due to be held in Kunming, China in 2020 and postponed several times because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Geneva meeting will announce new dates for COP 15, which is currently slated for April to May but is expected to be delayed again.

According to several sources, the new dates envisaged are from the end of August to the beginning of September.

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IUCN

March 14, 2022
The new UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report1 synthesizes the latest science on the impacts on and vulnerability of natural and socio-economic systems to climate change, and challenges and options for adaptation.

A key message from the IPCC report is that “Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.” All approaches are needed, including “safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems” and protecting “approximately 30% to 50% of the Earth’s land, freshwater and ocean areas, including near-natural ecosystems.”

Human-induced climate change and extreme weather events have substantially damaged ecosystems, and led to increases in the risk of extinction of more than 10,000 species, including the extinct Bramble Cay melomys. Such events simultaneously result in serious implications for human well-being by impacting on food and water security , and higher incidence of associated diseases.

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Business Standard

March 14, 2022
After a two-year delay, negotiators from more than 190 countries are gathering in Geneva on Monday for a fortnight-long critical discussions around a global strategy to help stem the tide of biodiversity loss.

This is the last time countries will discuss the agreement, known as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), before the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15).

The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework has been called the biodiversity equivalent of the Paris Climate agreement.

"The world is clearly eager for urgent action to protect nature," said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. "And we have no time to spare. Together we must ultimately deliver a truly historic agreement that puts us firmly on the path to living in harmony with nature."

Scientists have issued repeated warnings about the dangerous decline in biodiversity. A landmark 2019 global biodiversity assessment found that "nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history -- and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely".

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Phys.org

March 11, 2022
Global efforts to cut plastic and agricultural pollution, protect a third of wild spaces, and ultimately live "in harmony with nature" will dominate UN biodiversity negotiations starting Monday, held in person after a two-year pandemic delay.

Almost 200 countries are due to adopt a global framework this year to safeguard nature by mid-century from the destruction wrought by humanity, with a key milestone of 30 percent protected by 2030.

The aim is also to safeguard the "services" nature supplies: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil that yields the food we eat. 

The meeting in Geneva will set the stage for a crucial UN biodiversity summit, initially due to be held in China in 2020 and postponed several times. It is now expected to take place at the end of August.

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